Runner looks to raise funds for St. Jude's

Published 10:50 am, Friday, July 14, 2017

The first person to acknowledge that he doesn’t have the typical wiry build of a distance runner, much less the speed that often accompanies it – is Cory Stamps himself.

Not that he hasn’t been a good enough runner that he finished the Joplin Memorial Marathon on May 20, or that he isn’t confident he can meet the 6 hours and 30 minutes qualifying time for the Oct. 8 Bank of America Chicago Marathon.

But it’s often been hard.

“It’s been physically grueling and emotionally draining, especially since I’m a bigger person. But I’ve always thrived on pushing myself,“ Stamps said in a recent phone interview.

To help motivate himself, the 2005 Edwardsville High School graduate has been withholding chocolate and rice from his diet, two foods he really enjoys. It isn’t just that he wants to be healthier. It’s just that he has told himself that in order to get them back, he will have to train harder than he is now.

“It’s a great motivation for me to challenge myself to go without the things I enjoy,” he said recently.

“I’m running for kids who might be too sick to run today, but who could one day be running alongside me because the money I raised helped find a cure for childhood cancer,” he wrote on the website’s fundraising page. The money raised helps continue their policy that families never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing or food. It goes toward research and treatments that have helped push the overall survival rate from 20 percent to more than 80 percent since it opened more than 50 years ago. “St. Jude won’t stop until no child dies from cancer,” the site says.

To help reach his goal, Stamps will be hosting a fundraiser at Panera’s in Edwardsville. The event runs from 4 to 8 p.m. on July 25. If at least 50 people show up during those hours, Panera will donate 20 percent of their sales to the charity. Whoever shows up needs to bring his fundraising flyer, which is available via Facebook or through the Internet on their phone.

Stamps is helping St. Jude because he considers children to be a bridge to the future. Lately he has been helping with the children’s ministry and summer camps at Troy United Methodist Church.

“Children are very important in my life,” he says. “I chose this organization because kids need all the support they can get from families and strangers. I’m just trying to raise as much awareness for them as possible.”